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1character2025-11-19 09:28 am
delphi) wrote in 1character2025-11-19 09:28 am
The Voyage of the Unicorn (50 Sentences About Izzy Hands)
Character: Izzy Hands
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Theme set: Zeta
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Sexuality (Relationships: Izzy/Crew of the Revenge), Strong Language, AU: Izzy Lives, wanton punctuation abuse
1. Swords
The love of a crew can't change him into something he isn't, but their hands right his edges like a whetstone and their words leave behind the gleam of oil on steel.
2. Sorcery
He sleeps soundly most nights now, though he can scarcely credit it.
3. Rogue
One of these days, he's going to catch Spriggs' thieving fingers untying the knot in his trouser-laces behind his back, and then—well, let’s be honest, it will still lead to buggery, but he'll have the satisfaction of surprising him.
4. Particolored
Black leather, black linen, black cotton, and—pressed discreetly against his breast, for his eyes only and those of anyone he allows to undress him—the new red silk lining on his waistcoat.
5. Divination
Frenchie demands his hand, playing with it as they sit in the captain’s cabin talking tactics, the pad of his thumb bridging the broken line that curves across Izzy’s palm.
6. Pillory
Look, it's as good as an apology after a blow-up, bending over a barrel below deck and letting whoever had their tender feelings stung line up for their turn on him.
7. Chant
Every time he performs, at the end of the night, it's still: "One-more-song! One-more-song!"
8. Castle
He has his cabin, a point of prestige, but it's half a storeroom now so as not to waste space when three-quarters of his nights find him in the forecastle, sleeping in whichever bed he found himself pulled into.
9. Brocade
The bulk of that bolt of silk will fetch a pretty penny in port, and that shade of blue would look fine on John.
10. Priest(ess)
"Lace me up?" the goddess says, still fixing her paint in the mirror, and with reverent hands, Izzy obeys.
11. Dark Knight
He recognizes that neck tattoo from one of Spriggs' tales of woe, and he takes no small amount of satisfaction from sticking his knife through it before letting the prick's corpse slump into the drink off the dark, quiet pier.
12. Evocation
He misses Ed like a lost limb.
13. Market
Fuck the Navy—come bearing goods, budget for bribes, and pay your tab, and there will always be another friendly port.
14. Ordeal by Fire
Vacation, he's solemnly informed, is when twice a year you find a nice beach out of the way somewhere and spend the day blowing shit up.
15. Ordeal by Water
When they’re clear of the storm and the watch has changed over, the five of them end up below deck together without a word exchanged, he and Fang, Archie, Jim, and Frenchie lying entangled in the darkness until the warmth comes back to them.
16. Dragon(fly)
"Transformation and good fortune," Auntie says, seeming to drive the words into his flesh with the steady-handed jab of her needle, transforming the knotted mess of the scar on his abdomen with improbably vivid blues and greens as the dragonfly takes flight.
17. Giant
You can't navigate by the north star alone, he thinks, apropos of nothing, as the ship passes through the waters not so far from a certain inn and his gaze turns away towards Arcturus beckoning bright on the horizon.
18. Trickster
"I know, right?" Spriggs drawls in his ear, avoiding his elbow as Izzy stares hot-eyed across the marketplace at where Frenchie has somehow convinced the fucking deputy governor to eagerly open his purse with nothing more than a ridiculous lie and an even more ridiculous hat.
19. Dungeon
He's been clapped in irons or slated for the noose enough times in his life that there shouldn’t be any thrill to fucking in the brig—but as he grips one set of bars and braces his leg against the other for leverage, Jim frotting demandingly astride his hips and Archie doing her best to smother him, he has to admit it's a decent spot to steal a shag.
20. Scroll
He closes his eyes, goose-flesh prickling in equal measure from the scritch-scritch-scritch of Lucius's pencil and the slow back-and-forth of Fang’s fingertips on his bare hip.
21. Elemental
The campfire pops and crackles, exhaling embers that drift along the beach, the waves lapping, lapping, lapping as he leans against John's side and idly rakes his fingers through the cool sand.
22. Ale
Thank fuck Jackie’s been in the marrying mood again—she's finally got a husband back on staff who can brew a proper beer.
23. Stew
"Taste," Roach orders, sticking a spoon in his mouth, and whatever important point Izzy had been in the process of making at no small volume is lost to the distraction of creamy cassava and pepper gravy.
24. Staff
He sniffs, shrugging as he looks down at the bloody ambitious carving Jim's fixed to the leather harness, and does his best to suppress any eagerness in his voice as he says, "Yeah, all right—might as well take it for a spin."
25. Lore
Fairy tales aren't in his repertoire, but the stories he tells on the evenings when it's his turn don't start all that differently: “Back in the day...”
26. Artifact
"My mother's," he replies brusquely and forces a roll of his eyes as Twatty’s indolent handling turns careful, tucking the corners of his neckerchief around the ring before setting it gently beside the bunk.
27. Guild
There's equal satisfaction in having cause to say the words and having them work, anytime he and the crew encounter a locked door between them and a parlay: "They're with me."
28. Lantern
His religious days are long behind him, but he finds the same satisfaction in taking the morning watch as some might find in a pew or a pulpit, or in whatever the pagans of old got up to in the woods—putting out the lamps when the sun starts to clear the horizon, his cold hands on warm brass, marking their survival through another night and saving whatever fuel he can for tomorrow.
29. Chest
Living at sea means close quarters, and while Izzy isn’t inherently opposed to letting someone rest their head on his chest in the post-coital heap when space is spare, he very much wishes the phrase "Dibs on Izzy's tits" had never entered ship vocabulary.
30. Alchemy
He'll give them this: they’re the only crew he's ever met capable of spinning bullshit into gold.
31. Potion
The tea Roach makes him tastes like someone pissed on a tree before boiling the bark, and the liniment for his leg smells like someone mixed the tea with Bonnet’s bathwater—still, God help him, they do ease the pain.
32. Doppelganger
The old him is always following close behind, waiting for the fear to come gnawing, for his temper to fray, but the wind's at his back these days and his new leg carries him faster than you'd think.
33. Arrow
Sometimes it hits him out of nowhere, straight in the heart with a sharp, sweet pang: those fucking cocksuckers.
34. Map
Half dozing and half squashed, Izzy lies in the darkness with his eyes closed and traces history down the bump on Fang’s shoulder where it healed funny after that brawl in the Republic, the smooth burn scar from boarding the Endeavour, the raised lines of the tattoo he got that night in the rainy season on Curaçao...
35. Coin
You'd have to be an idiot to bury treasure in the ground, and you'd have to be a sentimental fool to start buying credit at every business in port that seems likely to weather a storm, in the hopes that something will be there for your people after you’re gone.
36. Crusade
Even the smallest British Naval outpost has numbers on their side, but Izzy maintains in turn that even a small crew can do an outsize share of damage when they have a fast ship and a pyromaniac on board.
37. Witch
"It's a proven plan, mate," Frenchie assures him and—looking from his earnest green face to John standing patiently in the cat costume beside him—Izzy can only sigh and acquiesce.
38. Duel
One step forward, one back, teeth bared, claws out—he and Twatty can never quite decide day to day whether they want to fuck or punch each other in the face, and part of him hopes that never changes.
39. Boots
He keeps his movements steady but only just, drawing the oiled rag smoothly back and forth over the toe of Jim's boot with fraying breath and parting legs as they slowly press their heel into his crotch.
40. Chalice
It hits different, a drink on a cold night when the mouth of the bottle is already warm as it's passed to him.
41. Offering
He turns over onto his stomach in the captain’s bed while Frenchie undresses, his scars bared, arse too, the message clear: whatever you need, whatever you want.
42. Sacrifice
"Don't you ever do that again, you stupid fucking fuck," he grates out, heart still pounding with helpless rage in the face of Fang's sheepish expression, watching Roach pack the poultice for the graze on his arm, "not for me, do you understand?"
43. Stained Glass
If he wasn't already bound for Hell, getting jerked off in the sacristy of a St. Augustine church while two of his fingers slip smooth as sin into Jim's cunt is far from the worst way to book passage.
44. Diadem
A soft perfume fills his next breath as Fang carefully lowers the chain of flowers onto his head, the light from the pink paper lanterns dancing in his dark eyes as he confides in a whisper: "You look so pretty."
45. Epic
The tale gets taller with each telling, and somehow the foolishness wears down its edges as their time adrift becomes five days, ten days, new moon to new moon, and not just a raw seagull between them but a frigatebird, a ruinous albatross, a shark baited by an open vein and pulled bare-handed from the water...
46. King
He hasn't set foot back in England since he was sixteen years old, but something about visiting the inn feels like the shadow of it—uneasily ashore in a land that's changed without him, subject again to an authority half-forsworn and a citizenship never quite formally renounced.
47. Servant
Peeling sweet potatoes isn't in his job description, but it's comfortable down in the galley, with Roach for good company, and he knows that if his kitchen-handing is deemed up to snuff, they might well find another use for the table once supper's on the boil.
48. Fae
He never speaks Frenchie's Christian name after it's murmured in his ear one night in bed—only keeps it close to his chest, wrapped in the miserable little story it came with, safe and secret.
49. Prophecy
"You won't be rid of us that easy," Roach told him somewhere in that cold and bloodless haze after he was shot, pressing harder on the wound than he probably needed to, the bastard.
50. Destiny
And so up he'll get once again to the call of another bell on another pale morning, wrangling himself free from the sweaty tangle of limbs he fell asleep in, reaching for his clothes, reaching for his leg, a day's work ahead of him once more—here on his ship, here with his crew.
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Theme set: Zeta
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Sexuality (Relationships: Izzy/Crew of the Revenge), Strong Language, AU: Izzy Lives, wanton punctuation abuse
1. Swords
The love of a crew can't change him into something he isn't, but their hands right his edges like a whetstone and their words leave behind the gleam of oil on steel.
2. Sorcery
He sleeps soundly most nights now, though he can scarcely credit it.
3. Rogue
One of these days, he's going to catch Spriggs' thieving fingers untying the knot in his trouser-laces behind his back, and then—well, let’s be honest, it will still lead to buggery, but he'll have the satisfaction of surprising him.
4. Particolored
Black leather, black linen, black cotton, and—pressed discreetly against his breast, for his eyes only and those of anyone he allows to undress him—the new red silk lining on his waistcoat.
5. Divination
Frenchie demands his hand, playing with it as they sit in the captain’s cabin talking tactics, the pad of his thumb bridging the broken line that curves across Izzy’s palm.
6. Pillory
Look, it's as good as an apology after a blow-up, bending over a barrel below deck and letting whoever had their tender feelings stung line up for their turn on him.
7. Chant
Every time he performs, at the end of the night, it's still: "One-more-song! One-more-song!"
8. Castle
He has his cabin, a point of prestige, but it's half a storeroom now so as not to waste space when three-quarters of his nights find him in the forecastle, sleeping in whichever bed he found himself pulled into.
9. Brocade
The bulk of that bolt of silk will fetch a pretty penny in port, and that shade of blue would look fine on John.
10. Priest(ess)
"Lace me up?" the goddess says, still fixing her paint in the mirror, and with reverent hands, Izzy obeys.
11. Dark Knight
He recognizes that neck tattoo from one of Spriggs' tales of woe, and he takes no small amount of satisfaction from sticking his knife through it before letting the prick's corpse slump into the drink off the dark, quiet pier.
12. Evocation
He misses Ed like a lost limb.
13. Market
Fuck the Navy—come bearing goods, budget for bribes, and pay your tab, and there will always be another friendly port.
14. Ordeal by Fire
Vacation, he's solemnly informed, is when twice a year you find a nice beach out of the way somewhere and spend the day blowing shit up.
15. Ordeal by Water
When they’re clear of the storm and the watch has changed over, the five of them end up below deck together without a word exchanged, he and Fang, Archie, Jim, and Frenchie lying entangled in the darkness until the warmth comes back to them.
16. Dragon(fly)
"Transformation and good fortune," Auntie says, seeming to drive the words into his flesh with the steady-handed jab of her needle, transforming the knotted mess of the scar on his abdomen with improbably vivid blues and greens as the dragonfly takes flight.
17. Giant
You can't navigate by the north star alone, he thinks, apropos of nothing, as the ship passes through the waters not so far from a certain inn and his gaze turns away towards Arcturus beckoning bright on the horizon.
18. Trickster
"I know, right?" Spriggs drawls in his ear, avoiding his elbow as Izzy stares hot-eyed across the marketplace at where Frenchie has somehow convinced the fucking deputy governor to eagerly open his purse with nothing more than a ridiculous lie and an even more ridiculous hat.
19. Dungeon
He's been clapped in irons or slated for the noose enough times in his life that there shouldn’t be any thrill to fucking in the brig—but as he grips one set of bars and braces his leg against the other for leverage, Jim frotting demandingly astride his hips and Archie doing her best to smother him, he has to admit it's a decent spot to steal a shag.
20. Scroll
He closes his eyes, goose-flesh prickling in equal measure from the scritch-scritch-scritch of Lucius's pencil and the slow back-and-forth of Fang’s fingertips on his bare hip.
21. Elemental
The campfire pops and crackles, exhaling embers that drift along the beach, the waves lapping, lapping, lapping as he leans against John's side and idly rakes his fingers through the cool sand.
22. Ale
Thank fuck Jackie’s been in the marrying mood again—she's finally got a husband back on staff who can brew a proper beer.
23. Stew
"Taste," Roach orders, sticking a spoon in his mouth, and whatever important point Izzy had been in the process of making at no small volume is lost to the distraction of creamy cassava and pepper gravy.
24. Staff
He sniffs, shrugging as he looks down at the bloody ambitious carving Jim's fixed to the leather harness, and does his best to suppress any eagerness in his voice as he says, "Yeah, all right—might as well take it for a spin."
25. Lore
Fairy tales aren't in his repertoire, but the stories he tells on the evenings when it's his turn don't start all that differently: “Back in the day...”
26. Artifact
"My mother's," he replies brusquely and forces a roll of his eyes as Twatty’s indolent handling turns careful, tucking the corners of his neckerchief around the ring before setting it gently beside the bunk.
27. Guild
There's equal satisfaction in having cause to say the words and having them work, anytime he and the crew encounter a locked door between them and a parlay: "They're with me."
28. Lantern
His religious days are long behind him, but he finds the same satisfaction in taking the morning watch as some might find in a pew or a pulpit, or in whatever the pagans of old got up to in the woods—putting out the lamps when the sun starts to clear the horizon, his cold hands on warm brass, marking their survival through another night and saving whatever fuel he can for tomorrow.
29. Chest
Living at sea means close quarters, and while Izzy isn’t inherently opposed to letting someone rest their head on his chest in the post-coital heap when space is spare, he very much wishes the phrase "Dibs on Izzy's tits" had never entered ship vocabulary.
30. Alchemy
He'll give them this: they’re the only crew he's ever met capable of spinning bullshit into gold.
31. Potion
The tea Roach makes him tastes like someone pissed on a tree before boiling the bark, and the liniment for his leg smells like someone mixed the tea with Bonnet’s bathwater—still, God help him, they do ease the pain.
32. Doppelganger
The old him is always following close behind, waiting for the fear to come gnawing, for his temper to fray, but the wind's at his back these days and his new leg carries him faster than you'd think.
33. Arrow
Sometimes it hits him out of nowhere, straight in the heart with a sharp, sweet pang: those fucking cocksuckers.
34. Map
Half dozing and half squashed, Izzy lies in the darkness with his eyes closed and traces history down the bump on Fang’s shoulder where it healed funny after that brawl in the Republic, the smooth burn scar from boarding the Endeavour, the raised lines of the tattoo he got that night in the rainy season on Curaçao...
35. Coin
You'd have to be an idiot to bury treasure in the ground, and you'd have to be a sentimental fool to start buying credit at every business in port that seems likely to weather a storm, in the hopes that something will be there for your people after you’re gone.
36. Crusade
Even the smallest British Naval outpost has numbers on their side, but Izzy maintains in turn that even a small crew can do an outsize share of damage when they have a fast ship and a pyromaniac on board.
37. Witch
"It's a proven plan, mate," Frenchie assures him and—looking from his earnest green face to John standing patiently in the cat costume beside him—Izzy can only sigh and acquiesce.
38. Duel
One step forward, one back, teeth bared, claws out—he and Twatty can never quite decide day to day whether they want to fuck or punch each other in the face, and part of him hopes that never changes.
39. Boots
He keeps his movements steady but only just, drawing the oiled rag smoothly back and forth over the toe of Jim's boot with fraying breath and parting legs as they slowly press their heel into his crotch.
40. Chalice
It hits different, a drink on a cold night when the mouth of the bottle is already warm as it's passed to him.
41. Offering
He turns over onto his stomach in the captain’s bed while Frenchie undresses, his scars bared, arse too, the message clear: whatever you need, whatever you want.
42. Sacrifice
"Don't you ever do that again, you stupid fucking fuck," he grates out, heart still pounding with helpless rage in the face of Fang's sheepish expression, watching Roach pack the poultice for the graze on his arm, "not for me, do you understand?"
43. Stained Glass
If he wasn't already bound for Hell, getting jerked off in the sacristy of a St. Augustine church while two of his fingers slip smooth as sin into Jim's cunt is far from the worst way to book passage.
44. Diadem
A soft perfume fills his next breath as Fang carefully lowers the chain of flowers onto his head, the light from the pink paper lanterns dancing in his dark eyes as he confides in a whisper: "You look so pretty."
45. Epic
The tale gets taller with each telling, and somehow the foolishness wears down its edges as their time adrift becomes five days, ten days, new moon to new moon, and not just a raw seagull between them but a frigatebird, a ruinous albatross, a shark baited by an open vein and pulled bare-handed from the water...
46. King
He hasn't set foot back in England since he was sixteen years old, but something about visiting the inn feels like the shadow of it—uneasily ashore in a land that's changed without him, subject again to an authority half-forsworn and a citizenship never quite formally renounced.
47. Servant
Peeling sweet potatoes isn't in his job description, but it's comfortable down in the galley, with Roach for good company, and he knows that if his kitchen-handing is deemed up to snuff, they might well find another use for the table once supper's on the boil.
48. Fae
He never speaks Frenchie's Christian name after it's murmured in his ear one night in bed—only keeps it close to his chest, wrapped in the miserable little story it came with, safe and secret.
49. Prophecy
"You won't be rid of us that easy," Roach told him somewhere in that cold and bloodless haze after he was shot, pressing harder on the wound than he probably needed to, the bastard.
50. Destiny
And so up he'll get once again to the call of another bell on another pale morning, wrangling himself free from the sweaty tangle of limbs he fell asleep in, reaching for his clothes, reaching for his leg, a day's work ahead of him once more—here on his ship, here with his crew.